Interview with Gary Fegan, Head of Digital Financial Services Solutions at Fujitsu

LTP:Tell us about Fujitsu in financial services?

Gary Fegan: Until recently, Fujitsu approached FS in a sector-by-sector manner, with great offerings in the Nordics, Japan and Spain. Now, Fujitsu is bringing together it’s wealth of experience to deliver true global offerings and services, which is quite exciting for the EMEIA market.

LTP: What is the idea behind the new partnership with FinTech firms?

GF: Fujitsu, whilst speaking to our existing FS clients, identified the same problem with banks that were a little behind the digitalization curve and that was how to deliver the digital experience without trying to shoehorn yet more technology into a legacy multichannel ecosystem.

Therefore, Smart Origination came about through a real need to offer an enterprise class digital banking experience with the size and capability to deliver it in a highly regulated environment.

LTP: What are the challenges that are present in customer onboarding?

GF: Contextualization is the biggest issue. Being able to offer the same experience regardless of the channel and to be able to start in a branch and complete it in a home and to be able to cope with not only the customer that has years of credit history but also the school dropout who has never had a bank account or paid a utility bill. To handle this all digitally with a frictionless and intuitive process is the real challenge.

LTP: Fujitsu is present across multiple geographies. Where do you see the maximum impact of FinTech in these geographies?

GF: Initially, the Far East – most notably China, but Japan isn’t far behind. America and Europe will be large-scale adopters but I expect the real innovation to be driven by necessity and that could be India or Africa.

LTP: What according to you is the 12-to-24-month outlook for the financial services industry?

GF: PSD2 will have a huge effect here in Europe and will revolutionize the way data is used in FS and this will lead to a wave of nontraditional services being delivered from banks. There will be a lot of new and exciting partnerships such as trip advisor advice when traveling, tools for business banking customers to automate tax returns, etc. FS offerings will have to burst out of their current niche offerings and start looking at customer needs to remain relevant.

LTP: How do you view the competitive landscape for Smart Origination?

GF: Just now, Smart Origination is unique in that it offers everything for an omnichannel banking experience underpinned by a global SI able to work in partnership with banks and hosted on a world-class hybrid cloud offering. The other option is to try and integrate these disparate technologies yourself and support them, but this will likely take a large program of work that banks just don’t need with the amount of regulatory change taking place over the next two years.

Smart Origination is only the start of the journey for banks. I like to think of it as digitizing the traditional channel experience but what it gives banks is the ability to spend their resources delivering true innovation and differentiation and I believe that will inevitably include partnerships with more FinTechs. I think they will become part of the core offering where these solutions are seen to add real value.

Interview with Stuart Lacey, CEO and Founder of Trunomi

LTP: Can you tell us about Trunomi and the solutions that you bring to the market?

Stuart Lacey: Trunomi unlocks the power of customer data using consent and digital rights. Our technology enables companies to connect with customers and securely authenticate their identity, and comply with regulations and privacy laws – specifically incoming EU General Data Protection Regulation.

LTP: What is your view on the customer onboarding industry? Can you highlight key challenges it faces?

SL: There is currently a convergence of market forces that is compelling financial institutions to innovate their approach to customer onboarding. The rise of instant digital services, tougher regulation of data protection, and consumer attitudes towards data privacy are all combining to form a new age of customer onboarding. Firms must evolve antiquated processes to deliver an all-digital, omnichannel and soon – an open banking experience to customers that is fast, simple and secure. They continue to be challenged to meet strict risk, AML and KYC obligations and many must also satisfy the incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This EU law brings significant change to the way that companies can use, store and manage personal data for existing customers and when they onboard new customers.

LTP: In terms of the target customer, from which segment do you see a robust demand for Smart Origination?

SL: Smart Origination is designed not only to meet legislative requirements for customer onboarding and account servicing under the new GDPR, but it also offers financial institutions an opportunity to deliver superior omnichannel customer experience and a deeper customer relationship. Smart Origination is for any financial firm that wants to bring a true customer focus to its origination process.

LTP: What impact do you think Smart Origination would have on financial services?

SL: Many firms still rely on paper-based processes to onboard new customers. The ability to create a new customer relationship in under five minutes enables financial institutions to be more competitive and capitalize on consumers’ growing demands for all-digital banking relationships. Firms will also be able to more easily generate new revenue streams from existing customers through efficient cross-selling and upselling.

LTP: How do you view the competitive landscape for your solution?

SL: We have taken a unique approach to helping financial institutions better manage their customers’ personal data. Trunomi is the only company that can solve the current demands of data regulation with a new form of data contract between a customer and their financial services provider.